Doctors' protest: Gujarat doctor booked for brandishing firearm at rally

A case has been registered against a doctor in Gujarat’s Amreli city for allegedly waving his licensed pistol while addressing doctors and medical students assembled to protest the Kolkata rape-murder, police said on Saturday.

The incident took place around 9.30 pm Friday, 16 August when a large number of medical students and doctors had gathered at the city’s Rajkamal Chowk for a candle march, said Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP) Chirag Desai.

During his address before the start of the candle march, Dr GJ Gajera, a private practitioner, brandished his licenced pistol “with the intention to create fear among the public”, Desai said.

The police official said that Dr Gajera also violated a notification issued by the district magistrate concerning licensed weapons.

The doctor was booked under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) sections 353 (1), (b) – public mischief – and 270 (public nuisance), and under the Arms Act and Gujarat Police Act, he said.

Doctors associated with the Indian Medical Association (IMA) as well as trainee doctors and staff of the Amreli Civil Hospital had joined the march to protest the rape and murder of a doctor at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, he said.

Meanwhile, healthcare services took a hit across West Bengal on Saturday, 17 August as doctors joined their junior colleagues in a cease work, demanding justice for the rape and murder of a medic at Kolkata's R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital.

Junior doctors began the stir eight days ago, and with the seniors joining in following a call by the Indian Medical Association (IMA), services at the outpatient departments of both government and private hospitals were affected.

"Our agitation will continue. This is the only way to get our demands fulfilled. How can people get inside the hospital and attack us even when the police are present? We can understand the actual motive behind the vandalism," a protesting doctor said.

Non-essential healthcare services at the state-run S.S.K.M. Hospital, Sambhunath Pandit Hospital, and Calcutta National Medical College and Hospital, among others, were crippled because of the agitation. Similar was the scene at the private healthcare facilities in the state.

Manipal Hospitals said routine OPD services have been closed in line with the IMA's call. "All emergency and essential services will continue and prior appointments will be rescheduled," an official of Manipal Hospitals said.

ILS Hospitals senior vice-president Debashis Dhar said, "In solidarity with the IMA strike, we have suspended OPD services and elective surgeries across all our units today. ILS Hospitals fully support this cause, and while routine services are suspended, our emergency services will continue to function as usual, ensuring patients in need of urgent care receive immediate attention."